


Being Alive

by ConnectingSmallDots



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 15:15:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11785845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConnectingSmallDots/pseuds/ConnectingSmallDots
Summary: Being alivehurt.A short piece on Shiro and sacrifice.





	Being Alive

**Author's Note:**

> The setting is ambiguous but I feel like this fits in season 2 best.

His knuckles were marked with splotches of dark purple and black, a never-ending cycle of bruises that grew old and began to fade before he made more. 

Shiro sighed. He ran the smooth pad of his right thumb over the injured skin as if he thought they would disappear at his touch. There were moments where he would rather look at his Galra-tech hand than his real one: the haunting memories glowing in a hot purple-white sometimes gave way to black and blue skin and broken bones. 

He knew he was a survivor. He clawed his way out to breathe air each time they buried him but fighting for his survival would made him drown. If he only knew how to fight, if he forgot how to breathe, then he would be a survivor but he wouldn’t be alive. 

His Galra arm was a lesson - a lesson that being a survivor stripped you down and replaced you with new parts - and his human arm a reminder.

Being alive _hurt_. 

Being alive was the burning and bleeding in your gut, the rattle of chains, the pull on your wrists. Being alive was fire creeping on your skin and water in your lungs. Being alive was a fist, pounding against the same spot in splintering wall that only cracked but never crumbled. Being alive was losing again and again and _again_.

Being alive got others killed. 

The universe didn’t need Shiro to live; it needed him to survive. 

And he would survive as long as the universe let him.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot of Shiro feels. Also this was written listening to Fall Out Boy's 'Champion' which hurts.
> 
> Thanks for reading. Kudos and comments are appreciated. <3


End file.
